Last week, golf media brand Good Good Golf and golf equipment giant Callaway released a 56-second ad promoting a limited-edition driver.
It was later revealed that it was supposed to be a parody of the horror movie Obsession. Did you pick up on that? To their surprise, not many people did. Instead, the focus was on other elements of the video rather than the extremely lame parody attempt.
From start to finish, very little of the ad makes sense. Garrett Clark, founder of Good Good, barrels across the course and knocks another Good Good member, Alexis Miestowski, to the ground for almost touching his driver. After that, he stands over her and says, “Do not touch my new driver.” Moments later, when a man reaches for it, Clark simply calls out to stop him.
The shoving, the hovering, the threatening tone—it’s hard to understand how the idea even made it past storyboarding and to the production phase, let alone be approved by both major brands and released to the public.
The ad was quickly deleted, but the story didn’t disappear with it. The backlash has grown into a business crisis, with stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target pulling merchandise from their shelves, a Good Good television show that was supposed to air on NBC’s Golf Channel being postponed, and a recent announcement that they have stepped away as the title sponsor PGA Tour event that was scheduled for this fall.
So, what the hell happened?
This wasn’t just two small brands taking a ‘creative swing’
Good Good may have started as a small YouTube channel, but they have grown far bigger than just a group of friends filming golf videos. The company is now a media, retail and event giant with 2.1 million YouTube subscribers (already down about 200,000 since the ad was released). In 2025, they raised $45 million to expand content, commerce and live experiences. Their products landed in national retailers, their partnerships include major names such as Yeti and Mountain Dew and their name was planned to headline a PGA Tour event scheduled for this fall.
All groundbreaking stuff in the YouTube golf world.
Callaway, on the other hand, hardly needs an introduction. They describe themselves as a leading golf equipment company and reported $2.06 billion in net sales in 2025. They also sponsor some of golf’s biggest professional stars like John Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Minjee Lee and Rose Zhang who use Callaway equipment for every tournament.
These are two sophisticated businesses (or so we thought) with massive audiences. That’s what makes this ad so striking. It was a collaborative product campaign that moved through both organizations and likely had hundreds of eyes on it.
Callaway CEO Chip Brewer confirmed that although Good Good produced the video, Callaway ultimately approved it before publication.
That approval, Brewer said, “should have never happened.”
Agreed.
The backlash that kept growing
We thought we were past the peak era of cancel culture where every online mistake became a weekslong debate of whether a person or brand should be “cancelled.” Attention spans continue to shorten. The next controversy is always loading.
But this story has stuck.
Within days, Good Good merchandise was removed from retail stores around the country and online. Golf Channel postponed the premiere of Big Break x Good Good after a sponsor asked to have its branding removed. The co-branded driver disappeared from Callaway’s website. The PGA Tour publicly criticized the video, and Good Good stepped down as a title sponsor for a PGA Tour event.
A large part of the sustained reaction is purely the nature of the ad. It appeared to use violence against a woman as a punchline to sell a golf club. Let that sink in for a second. Again, how did this get approved?
Another piece that has amplified the backlash is what Good Good represents in golf culture.
Good Good built its audience by presenting golf in a different way. Their content is fast, personality-driven and built around entertainment. Younger fans have taken a liking to this, as many prefer the exciting, fun nature of a knockout challenge or a random club challenge compared to four days of a traditional PGA Tour broadcast.
There is no right or wrong way to consume golf, and Good Good has been undeniably successful at reaching a new audience that traditional media struggles to engage.
But not everyone has embraced the shift. Some critics already saw YouTube golf as unserious, over-commercialized and undeserving of its growing place alongside the professional game. For those people, the ad became evidence for a conclusion they had already reached.
That doesn’t make the criticism illegitimate. It means reputational crises rarely happen on neutral ground. Audiences bring their existing feelings about a brand with them. This was a mistake that many had been waiting for.
Apology Time
Callaway’s first statement tried to place some distance between the company and the video, expressing disappointment in the content. That position became difficult to maintain once Callaway acknowledged their approval of the ad.
Brewer’s follow-up message was a little stronger:
Last week Good Good Golf and Callaway posted a video to promote a co-branded driver.
While the video was produced by Good Good, it was approved by Callaway prior to posting. That approval should never have happened. Mistakes were made and we are taking the matter very seriously.
As we deal with the consequences of our mistake and complete our investigations, I want to make it clear that we sincerely apologize for the video.
The content was inappropriate and does not reflect our values. To be clear: we are unequivocally against discrimination, domestic violence or threatening behaviour of any kind … I assure you we will learn from this and do better.
This addressed the questions a meaningful crisis response should answer: What happened? What responsibility did you hold? What are you doing to keep it from happening again? But overall still a pretty lame response to such a horrific ad. Words can only go so far.
They have since taken it a step further. Less than a week after the ad was released, the company announced they have ended their partnership with Good Good effective immediately and that they will be committing $1 million to organizations working to prevent violence against women and support survivors.
Clark and Good Good took a much more unconventional route: an eight-minute video posted via social media.
There were some necessary elements in it. He apologized for his participation and condemned the violence.
The bigger issue is the other 7 minutes and 30 seconds of the video.
He started the video by blaming the marketing team.
He followed that up by saying he didn’t like it either when it was posted.
I think we can all agree that we didn’t like it when it was posted, but unfortunately for him, unlike the millions of people who have seen it and don’t like it, he was the star of the ad and was most certainly in the decision-making room. Seems a little late to not like the video now.
To put the icing on the cake, sorry, nail in the coffin, he finished the video by patting himself and his company on the back, going on about how much Good Good has done to try and grow the women’s side of the game. Probably not the time, man.
What can we learn from this?
“Will this get attention?” can not be the final creative test
The more out there an idea is, the more rigorously a team needs to examine how the audience will receive it, and creative teams must evaluate what the ad communicates without the benefit of behind-the-scenes context.
Every approval is an acceptance of responsibility
It does not matter who developed, filmed or edited. If your company approves it, your company owns it.
Your audience’s existing opinion shapes the reaction
Good Good entered the controversy with a large, loyal following, but also many critics who already saw them as an unserious brand with a bad influence on golf. A crisis does not happen in isolation. It activates every existing concern, frustration and perception surrounding the brand. Businesses need to always be aware of where they are already vulnerable.
An apology is supposed to be just that, an apology
Clark attempted to apologize, provide context, condemn others and highlight Good Good's positive contributions all at once. Some of those points were valid, but together they completely weakened the apology. When a company is addressing its own mistakes, listing everything they have done right is definitely not the way to go.
Accountability must be followed by change
“We’ll do better” is easy to say. Callaway’s response included investigations, changes to its approval process and real action. That is the standard businesses should aim for. Identify the failure, explain what will change and then demonstrate it.
Good Good and Callaway set out to launch a limited-edition driver. Instead, they created a case study in what happens when bad creative, weak oversight and an unfocused response collide.
The lesson in all of this is not that brands should avoid taking risks. It’s that taking risks doesn’t remove the responsibility to know when an idea has crossed a line and always make sure someone in the room is willing to say so if it does.
